Entering Muslim localities by force, raising anti-Pakistan slogans and then creating ruckus has become a “strange trend”, District Magistrate of Bareilly in western Uttar Pradesh, Raghvendra Vikkram Singh, wrote on his Facebook page following the communal clashes in neighbouring Kasganj.

In Bareilly’s Khailam village last year, nearly 20 ‘kanwariyas’ and 15 ITBP jawans were injured in clashes following the formers’ insistence that they take their procession through Khailam, which is Muslim-dominated.

But the main trigger for Singh behind his Facebook post was Kasganj. On Republic Day this year, volunteers of Hindu organisations like the Vishva Hindu Parishad, the Hindu Mahasabha, and RSS-backed ABVP had taken out a rally. After passing through the Kotwali area in Kasganj, they entered a Muslim-dominated area where the local people were organising a January 26 event and objected to the rally’s passage.

At this, clashes and stone-pelting followed, in which a man named Chandan Gupta was shot dead. At least three shops, two buses and a car were also torched. The town remains tense three days after the violence.